Wright Containers is charged with dumping toxic chemicals down a storm drain. The company is located in southeast Houston, in the 6300 block of Lindbergh Street, in a mixed-residential-industrial commercial neighborhood within a mile of Gregg Elementary school and Hartman Middle School.

Wright Containers is charged with dumping toxic chemicals down a...

A Houston chemical container company and two of its principals face felony environmental charges after using a hidden storm drain to dump benzene and other highly toxic liquids into waterways near homes and schools over a period of at least months, injuring their employees in the process, prosecutors said Friday.

The indictments by a Harris County grand jury are rare. Though unpermitted hazardous materials facilities have been allowed to flourish in the city's unzoned sprawl, catching chemical waste dumpers — or merely getting an inventory of all the haz-mat sites around town — has proven difficult for the Houston Fire Department.

Prosecutors said they want this case to institute a new era of accountability for environmental crimes, relying on new lines of communication with the community to ferret out wrongdoers.

"If you're operating without a license and handling hazardous waste, discharging hazardous waste, disposing of it, we're going after you," said Alex Forrest, chief of the environmental crimes division of the Harris County District Attorney's Office.

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At Wright Containers, named in the indictments Thursday, the injured employees turned into whistleblowers, Forrest said.

They complained that the chemicals burned through their gloves and irritated their eyes. The company refused to pay for their medical care, they told investigators. Police officers searching the site with a warrant smelled strong chemical odors and felt more nauseous the closer they got to the drain, he said.

"Some of the chemicals would burn the skin off your bones," he said.

Owner Ronald F. Wright, 50, and general manager Gregory B. Hance, 41, each face two counts of intentional water pollution and one count of improper disposal and storage of hazardous materials. If convicted, they could face up to 10 years in prison and fines of up to $250,000 per violation. The company is also named as a defendant.

No one answered the phone at the business on Friday afternoon and an attorney for the men did not immediately return messages.

They turned themselves into authorities Friday and were released without bail, Forrest said. He did not know why, but said neither man has a criminal record, neither was deemed a flight risk and a court barred them from handling chemicals while the case is pending.

Wright Containers, in the 6600 block of Lindbergh Street in southeast Houston, is a few blocks away from Seguin Elementary School and hundreds of homes. Two other schools are nearby.

It deals in hefty industrial-strength containers, made of thick plastic, holding up to 330 gallons of liquid and encased in metal cages mounted on pallets. Workers stacked the chemical "totes" around the property's central storm drain to block it from public view, Forrest said.

The company offered recycled totes to industrial customers.

"Wright Containers will pick up your dirty and empty" totes, the company's website says, adding that Wright's relatively small size allows it to undercut the competition. Forrest said there was no evidence that companies sending totes to Wright Containers knew how the waste was being disposed.

"When you are receiving dirty totes for free ... and if you're not paying fees associated with properly collecting and disposing of hazardous waste ... then obviously when you're refurbishing that tote you're going to sell it at a much cheaper price," he said.

The website indicated the company uses "a proprietary chemical treatment" to recondition used totes. But Forrest said the company had its employees cut the containers into pieces to be thrown away, then re-outfitted the metal cages with other totes.

The company opened in 2017 and had plans for a second location in Sulphur, Louisiana.

It has customers from Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and other states.

A whistleblower provided video of chemicals being dumped into the drain, which ultimately leads to Sims Bayou and then Galveston Bay, Forrest said.

"We depend on our law-enforcement agencies, concerned citizens and whistleblowers to develop and communicate the intelligence and information we need to shut down these hazardous operations," he said. "The community truly is our eyes and ears, and we want the public to know we are here."

A 2016 investigation by the Houston Chronicle found that the fire department had no idea where most hazardous chemicals are, that less than a quarter of hazardous materials facilities with permits had been inspected, and little effort was being made to find ones skirting the rules.

Chemical facilities are sprinkled across neighborhoods and aren't always obvious. A fire at a chemical warehouse in Spring Branch in 2016 triggered evacuations of schools and homes, and caught neighbors and the fire department off guard. Updating the city database of hazmat facilities has been slow.

The extent of any environmental damage at Wright Containers was unclear Friday. State and local environmental officials couldn't immediately be reached for comment about any cleanup efforts.

The dumped chemicals included benzene, ethylbenzene, butylbenzene, dichloromethane, ethylbenzene and toluene, among others. Some are carcinogenic and highly flammable. It was impossible for investigators to estimate how much had been dumped into the drain over several months, Forrest said.

Wright Containers did not have the required permits for handling hazardous waste, he said. An online Texas Commission on Environmental Quality database of regulated companies shows nothing under the company's name.

District Attorney Kim Ogg said the indictments come as the result of a joint investigation with the Houston Police Department's Environmental Crimes Unit.

"Polluters who intentionally poison our environment with toxic and corrosive substances, who disregard the health of our people, and who cut corners on the handling of hazardous waste to make an extra buck are on notice," Ogg said. "We will prosecute aggressively and resolutely when the evidence justifies it."

To contact HPD's Environmental Investigations Unit, to report acts of pollution to air, water or land, call 713-525-2728.